Chelsea consider selling naming rights for Stamford Bridge

I_live_cement

I call it the Coca Cola Cup.

Or, failing that, the Mickey Mouse Cup.

ralphie88

If you have a stadium it doesn't have a name. So you sell the rights to give it a name to a company (for a lot of money). They then call it the MyProduct Stadium. Lots of money in that - Emirates, Allianz, JJB, Reebok...

However if a stadium has a name already, selling the rights to call it the MyProduct Stadium gets you fuck all because (a) the fans and the media just call it by its original name, and (b) the fans resent the company attempting to rename it. Hence, when presentation rights are sold, usually the company just adds their product name to the existing name (as has happened at St James's).

ralphie88

Yes, but no-one is going to pay big bucks to call Old Trafford 'Product X Stadium' because no-one is going to call it that. They will just continue to call it Old Trafford. That is why, as Gill says, there is "no value" in selling presentation rights and why United have instead sold presentation rights for things like car parks, benches and scoreboards.

mariachi-19

So we're looking to sign a mattress manufacturer then.

davisjw

I'm not one for renaming OT but how can you not say there's not value in it? We're arguably the world's largest team and our media reaches every part of the world. While fans and those close to football (at least in Europe) would still call it Old Trafford, the media would be forced to call it XYZ Stadium and thus any time we're spoken of, so too would the name. Overtime people will stop calling it Old Trafford and thus the naming process would be complete.

The quote "there's no value" isn't talking about a lack of monetary funds FOR the sponsor but rather beyond money there isn't any value for US. Why would he comment on whether someone could make money off us, we're not out to give financial advice. Yes we're in debt but we're not crying out for money, nor are we going to be in the near future so there's no point in ruining a long standing tradition and pissing fans off more that's where the value is.

It's quite silly to say the stadium name wouldn't do the sponsor well. It's not like we've renamed shirts AIG because they bought them. That's not how sponsorships work.

adexkola

What's in a name?

Makki

Bur seriously, how often is West Ham's ground referred to as "Boleyn Ground" by the media? They can call it whatever the fuck they want to call it (in this case, Upton Park), and will do so, irrespective of what it's called and who owns it.

MiamiSpartan

Ralphie, the media would call it by the new name. It would be on all the tickets, street signs, maps, and basically anything and everything official. Ultimately what that does is brand the stadium under the new name. I've seen it countless times over here in the states. The fans are resistant, but eventually come around to calling it by the new name because they get so used to it from the media and everywhere else. Add in all the new fans, glory hunters, etc. with no real tie to the old name, and they'll be much more accepting of the new name.

I agree that a lot of fans would resent the sponsor, boycott their product, etc. Still, that would be a relatively small number compared to the worldwide exposure.

However, the age of Old Trafford and some other stadiums work in their favor. Going back to American examples, there aren't a lot of old stadiums (40 or 50 years old or more) that have been changed to corporate sponsored names. Some are so classic, like Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, that a sponsorship name is incomprehensible. But as more and more stadiums go this route, it will be harder for Old Trafford to hold out, while also becoming more acceptable to fans, as it becomes the "norm".

Sunny Jim

i m just hoping they mean gay as happy

Sunny Jim

if we were going to get a new stadium i wouldn't mind selling the naming rights. but OT is OT ffs

Transfer United Till I Die

I'm not sure I'd give a fuck if they sold the presentation/naming rights at ot anyway. It would still be old Trafford to everyone anyway and every penny to service the debt would be welcome.

Oh, and silly name: kitkat crescent, York city.

Moriarty

You young 'uns. I call it the League Cup.

Marching

Sorry Ralphie but that can't be right and MiamiSpartan gave very good reasons why.

ralphie88

Experience has shown that (a) presentation rights for stadiums don't influence what fans of the club call the stadium, and the (b) you can't force the media to call a stadium any particular name. There's not a chance that people would stop calling Old Trafford by its proper name and both the Glazers and potential sponsors know this, hence Gill's comment.

I'm sorry this is very confused. Gill's comment that there's "no value there" is clearly referring to the value for the club. I.e. if, after you've stripped away existing presentation rights for, for example, the scoreboards, the dug-out, the key advertising hoardings, the words on the seats, would the club make more money through selling presentation rights. Gill says 'no', and on this occasion I think he's right. If there was value in the sponsorship for the sponsor then they would be willing to pay more and their would be value in it for the club. Surely that's obvious?

And yes, I'm afraid we are crying out for money. And United have already shown that they aren't averse to "pissing off fans" - hence the introduction of the Compulsory ACS.

If most people use the original name rather than the sponsor's name when referring to the stadium then quite clearly it wouldn't "sponsor well".

Sorry, I don;t know what you're trying to say here.

ralphie88

First, the media wouldn't universally call it by the new name. They would be under no obligation to and a lot of the old commentators etc would be extremely resistant to it.

The age and the tradition of Old Trafford plus the fact that Old Trafford is its location would mean fans would be extremely resistant to calling it anything else. Furthermore, the fact that it already has a name means that when it is used for tournaments or events with a clashing brand sector sponsor, it would inevitably go back to being called Old Trafford which causes problems with this 'rebranding exercise'.

Essentially you'd end up as a sponsor paying for signage rights and the mentions of the official stadium name from club sources. Now there is clearly some value in that and some sponsors would be willing to pay for it, but these are the reasons off the top of my head why it's simply not worth it for either sponsor or club:

Lack of Value for the Sponsor:
1. Old Trafford already has a name and fans will continue to use this.
2. The name Old Trafford would keep reappearing when it hosts events or matches where there are brand sector sponsor clashes or where sponsorship is limited to event partners (e.g. the FIFA World Cup).
3. Portions of the media will continue to use the original name. You may actually have to also put money or favours aside to 'encourage' them to use the new one.
4. Sections of the fanbase (not just local ones) would resent the company who sponsored the stadium. Leads to very bad P.R..

Lack of Value for the Club:
1. Obviously the amount that will be paid by any sponsor will be limited by points 1-4 above.
2. Cost of physical rebranding of stadium, signage and merchandise.
3. Loss of income from existing stadium brands ('Old Trafford', 'Theatre of Dreams'), particularly in merchandising and hospitality.
4. Loss of income from existing sponsors with presentation rights. You'd have to get rid of the Audi dug-out/car parks, the Hublot Watches scoreboards and the Nike seating arrangement on the East Stand. You'd also have to set aside top location advertising space/time on the hoardings, which would affect deals with companies like VisitMalaysia.
5. Loss on income from other sponsors. Essentially you would be creating another Premium Sponsor which would reduce the value of the other sponsors (both Premium and lower).

mariachi-19

We should sign Hooters.

Just imagine, 100's of big breasted women delivering beer to your seat throughout the game!

Crerand Legend

Looks like they are getting ready for the big spending spree now they have unbelievably got off their transfer ban

gaffs

Im not such a young'un. I went to the 1991 Rumbelows Cup Final.

Its just that the Worthington Cup seems to stick in my mind.

davisjw

Mate, you may understand a lot about United but you aren't the end all of everything. Branding is what I do for a living, I think I know a little more than your media infused brain.

1. UK fans would still call it by that. Foreign fans, new fans after the stadium's new names, and fans who don't care what it's called would refer to it as the new name. Marketing turns things around at a drop of the hat and if United would support it (like they would be forced to if a sponsor is throwing up hundreds of quid) people would take notice. Also "the oldies" I hate to say it, will die out to be replaced by people who grew up with the new name.
2. No, if the World Cup was going to play there, they'd have to call it the new stadium name. Why wouldn't they? It's the name of the stadium. It would be the official name so any time there's an official game it would known as whatever name it was given. You're essentially rebranding the stadium if that makes better sense to you. Fans may think otherwise but its brand wouldn't be OT any more.
3. Er, why would the media need to be bought off to use the name? They have (mostly) no attachments to the name and journos tend to be liberal any way so what difference would tradition be to them? It's an official name that the club would tell them to call it by. And the thousands of other journos in China, Africa, America, etc who don't know better would log onto the site and see it official called Nike Park (example) and use that as a quote.
4. Bad PR among a handful of fans is worth the hundreds of millions of media hits they would get in news articles, magazines, blogs, web casts, chit chat, etc. It's brand recognition and they're forming a partnership with United. United as a club would at least publicly support it and for 90% of fans, that's enough. Although I'm not for it, if Nike bought the naming rights, I'd still buy from them. If anything, it's the club's fault for putting it up in the first place. Nike are doing us a service by being the highest bidder and thus giving us the most money.

The other list is useless because I already know it doesn't make sense from the club's perspective, hence our stand on it.

I said we don't need the money because at the moment we're flying high, making record earnings (then of course seeing them fly out to the debt) so there's no need to complete sell ourselves to the devil. It's also a nice trump card, if things ever go down as we could get quite a hefty sum for it which would stave off the crows.

It's the same as if I buy a store. Right, it comes with staff, a history, their own brand, their own way of doing things, a nice sign on the door. BUT if I decide I want to name it something different, no one is stopping me because I own that store. I own that property. Just like if I wanted to sell the name of my store to the highest bidder, I can because I own it. A name is nothing more than a name and can be changed by whoever owns the object the name refers to.

MiamiSpartan

I just can't see the media (especially with so many ABUs among them) standing up and refusing to use the new name out of some sort of protest. If anything, the ABUs would want to use it all that much more as a dig at United fans. As for the non-ABUs, how many of them would give a shit enough to call it by it's old name?

And also keep in mind international announcers. Why would they care? Not many United sponsors are doing so to target Mancunians or even British fans. So the international value would be strong, as well.

Regarding being a "presenting" sponsor, I think an interesting example in the US would be to look at college football bowl games. Some have taken on the sponsorship name as the bowls only name, but there are also these presenting sponsors, like The FedEx Orange Bowl and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Fans and media rarely refer to them with the sponsorship names, but you can be sure that those companies see a value in the presenting sponsorships, as they spend a boat load for something that is only played once per year.

Of course, I'm not advocating any time of naming rights for OT. But I do think it will happen eventually. I think it's foolish to say that it's not going to happen, there's no value in it (despite what Gill says), etc. There was a time where fans would have scoffed at the idea of a sponsor's name being splashed across the front of the shirts, 20 times the size of club crest. No one refers to our club as AIG, but there is still value in it. And if Sharp ever faced a backlash or boycott from fans, it certainly didn't seem to bother them or keep them from staying on for so many years.

ralphie88

First things first, you have absolutely no idea what I do for a living. Suffice it to say, I have a fair bit of experience when it comes to the sports business.

For that to happen you'd need a stadium sponsor who was in it for the long term. And you're talking over ten years. Such deals are not common, even for bona fide naming rights for new stadiums.


Because that is what happens when tournaments are played at stadia subject to naming rights. Tournament sponsors pay for exclusive brand-sector rights and aren't prepared to have another brand gain leverage from the event. So, for example, the Allianz Arena was re-named the "FIFA World Cup Stadium Munich" for the 2006 World Cup and all trace of Allianz was removed from it. Come on, you're a branding expert, you knew that didn't you and were just testing me?


Well awkwardness and forgetfulness spring to mind. Have you actually heard any of our commentators? Can you honestly imagine Alan Green going along with "Nike Arena"?


United may support it with only 10% of fans supporting it. But that's not the issue, it's whether the company purchasing the rights wants 10% of United fans to be pissed off with them.

There appears to be a bit of a contradiction here. Why, if we'd make such a hefty sum, does Gill think "there's no value" in such a deal?

This analogy doesn't work. First, shoppers simply do not have the same emotional ties to a particular shop as they do to the stadium that their club play in. Second, the name of the shop rarely refers to its location.

MiamiSpartan

Didn't the stadiums with corporate sponsors in 2006 maintain their corporate names? A lot of those in Germany have had the corporate names replace older, traditional names. How are those referred to by both German and non-German media? I honestly don't know the answer.

EDIT: Just saw Ralphie's comment about this above. But looking on FIFA's site for their information on the 2006 World Cup, they call it Allianz Arena. Several of them are called just "FIFA World Cup Stadium". One or two others have a corporate name listed.

This will be interesting to watch in the future, especially with regard to the US bid for another world cup. In 94, stadium naming rights hadn't really taken off here. But now, there wouldn't be many stadiums on the list that DON'T have a corporate sponsorship name.

ralphie88

By the time of the tournament, all the corporate names were meant to have been replaced, including Allianz. But it just goes to show how difficult it is the police when you want the 'official' title used rather than the one the fans are used to calling it.

Melbourne Red

I followed Sebastian Deisler for a bit- to the shops, to the pub etc.

It wasn't very interesting.

Spoony Youngblood

Bastard.

Rood

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The joy of naming rights
Chelsea and Newcastle United are thinking about selling the naming rights to their stadiums. But why do fans get so upset about their hallowed ground having a corporate moniker?..